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Homeschooling in Communist China on the Rise Despite Ban

Despite laws mandating a vigorous 9-year program of communist indoctrination for all children, a growing number of Chinese parents are risking the ire of their brutal rulers to educate their kids at home. In fact, the number of home-educating families appears to be soaring.

Because homeschooling is illegal in China, estimates on the number of homeschooled children vary widely. But according to figures released by the 21st Century Education Research Institute and cited in an article in the South China Morning Post, the number of homeschooled children tripled in just three years, going from 2,000 in 2013 to 6,000 by 2016.

Other anecdotal evidence suggests the numbers are far, far higher. On Chinese social-media service WeChat, for instance, the China Home-schooling account, an alliance of parents and educators, has more than 23,000 members. Because the Chinese regime monitors and strictly controls what happens online, the real number of home-educating families may be even higher than that.

The growth in home education has sparked concern among the regime's education bureaucrats. According to the SCMP report, the growing public interest in escaping Beijing's indoctrination program cause the “Education Ministry” to release a statement warning parents that “it’s forbidden to conduct home-schooling education to replace the compulsory education uniformly enforced across the country.”

One homeschooling father quoted in the article, Tsang Tsz-kin, remembered the indoctrination from his own days in government school, which included forcing students to read from the diaries of late Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. Another homeschooling father quoted in the report, Zhang Qiaofeng, an entrepreneur and university professor, noted that “Chinese teaching materials promote indoctrination, which is bad for the development of critical-thinking skills.”

While much of the indoctrination is similar to that inflicted on American children, in some ways, the brainwashing is less extreme than in America. Of course, all Chinese children are subjected to a constant barrage of propaganda supporting evolution, communism, and more. The same is true in the United States, too. Children in both nations also are taught a phony version of history.

But in China, unlike in the United States, government schools do not fiendishly promote homosexuality, gender confusion, perversion, and more. Also, the dumbing down in the United States, which includes using discredited quackery that handicaps children for life in reading and math, is far more extreme than in China, where children generally do well in math and language arts.

The courage shown by Chinese parents in defying the mighty communist dictatorship to protect their children is incredibly admirable. If more American mothers and fathers would show just a fraction of that courage by legally withdrawing their children from government indoctrination centers and teaching them at home, the nation and their children would be infinitely better off.